What counts as a pH swing? This ok?

vyserage

vyserage

Well-Known Member
I know you dont want pH swings or you can have issues (cause it shocks the plants roots a bit?)

BUT, what counts as a pH swing in RDWC ? Better yet, let me tell you how i plan to do it and lets see if thats a problem? I'm only on day 17 of my first rdwc grow.

After looking at this below chart, you can see the general ph level you want it at.

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Now what i plan to do is this:
4 days at 6.30 and let drift as low as 6.00.
4 days at 5.80 and let drift as low as 5.50.
4 days at 6.30 and let drift as low as 6.00.
4 days at 5.80 and let drift as low as 5.50
REZ CHANGE, repeat for full grow.

its super easy to raise my pH with tap water in at above 7. pH also tends to drift down in number slowly over the days so thats nice. When it comes to ph'ing it down to the 5.8, i just splash some ph down in the rez and wait an hour and check/repeat until i get my targeted ph.

I decided to go with this so the plant is getting the mostly-full ranges of nutes at high ph and the remaining nutes at the lower ph range, since there isnt a 1 ph fits all like in soil :(

so is this going to cause a ph swing to my plants and harm them in any way by doing this?
questions? Comments?
 
It seams kinda crazy to go through all that I grow dwc and keep my ph at and around 5.8. The ph will go up or down over the course of 7 days. I don’t mess with it as long is I’m above 5.6 and below6.3 usually depending on the base ph of your starting water and the amount of chemicals you put in there your ph should start so show a constantly and it almost becomes boring. But as for what you want to do I say why not try and start a journal and document it with photographs so we all can see the progress and how the dedication of a controlled ph effects the plant growth.
 
Ya a grow journal is on my to do list. Perhaps I'll start it tomorrow.

My damn ph meter fell into the res bucket so now I'm awaiting another one lol
 
Here are some pics of why im going through all this, i started having what looks like mag. deficiency (leaf curl upwards like a taco, large brown spots, wilt?) and signs of calcium def. The cal. def. can be seen on the other plant (photo of the closeup of leaf)

Atleast i believe this is calmag def after looking around for a couple hours. The fact that my pH was very VERY rarely above 6.0, like there for maybe a day since growing day 1, then right back to 5.8 lol

What do u guys think? I've already corrected the PH to 6.3 and slowly dropping. Havent noticed too much difference but these things do take time to recover, and the new growth seems to be ok so far i think. These signs started over a week ago and i've just kept watch and tried little things like moving humidifier away from plant 4, raising light 6 inches, dropped ppm from the 600's to 400's. And just the recent one as of 2 days ago - raised ph from 5.8 to 6.3.

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IMO...you're making it harder than it needs to be. @Icemann420 has already given you the key. Change your reservoir, put pH at 5.6 and let it drift up as it will in veg, keeping it on average 5.8

The damaged leaves will not recover, watch for healthy new growth. I'd ditch the aluminum foil too. A piece of cardboard painted flat white is as effective and won't create odd shadows and hot spots.
 
Rifleman said:
IMO...you're making it harder than it needs to be. @Icemann420 has already given you the key. Change your reservoir, put pH at 5.6 and let it drift up as it will in veg, keeping it on average 5.8

The damaged leaves will not recover, watch for healthy new growth. I'd ditch the aluminum foil too. A piece of cardboard painted flat white is as effective and won't create odd shadows and hot spots.
Click to expand...
nope i cant do that, thats whats killing my plants. No calcium and magnesium. As soon as i raised to 6.3 and let drift to 6.0 it solved my problems and now the plants are drinking good and damage has stopped :D It would seem with higher temps in res, u need a higher ph. Everything is going excellent now. I think ill even let it drift down to 5.8 before raising back to 6.3, just to get those other nutrients in the lower ph.

i started this thread too, which is where the issue was solved:
RDWC droop day 11
 
Ya thats what i would expect as well, i had planned for 5.8 much of the time and thats what i did. Unfortunately it lead to problems. So far no issues at 6.3 and letting drift slowly to 6.0. It so far takes a few days to drift from a 6.3 to 6.2, this was also partly my doing as my top ups are non ph'd so its a 7.4 - 7.6 tap water mixed with calmag and hydroguard.

Today i actually added some ph down to my 1 gallon top up as the ph was 6.06 in res and 6.14 - 6.16 in plant buckets. I figure ill let it get to a 5.8 and get some of that delicious manganese. As much as i love the 6.0 - 6.1 zone getting everything but Mn, i should let it eat a bit at the 5.8 zone for a couple days lol.

So all in all, surprisingly enough this seems to be working for me (the higher ph). Perhaps its due to running higher water temps, not many people do that from grows i've read in hydro. They all have chillers so they run the 5.8.

here's some updated photo's :D I chopped off all the bad leaf's a couple days ago and today i did some light defoliation to leafs blocking lower nodes and pushed some leafs under nodes.

BELOW = Day 26 before i snipped off the bad leafs

View album 22199
BELOW = Day 30, a couple days after i had already snipped off the bad leafs.
View album 22353
 
Let it Drift between the low end of the optimal scale to the High end of the scale, depending on how your water is going up or down in ph by itself, let it run through the whole scale so that the plant is able to maximize its time in each range and absorb those nutes at that range untill you bring it back and continue the cycle. if that makes sense ?
 
I guess it's odd that my ph is always going down naturally instead of up?

The only reason it's been slowly going up is due to my top ups of 7.4 to 7.6 tap water.

For example, it's at 6.09 and 9 hrs later it's 6.03'ish, then I add a gallon of top up water as that's what it needs and it takes it up a bit above 6.10 and is down to 6.05 or so another 9 hrs later. Slowly I get it back to 6.3 before I ph down to 5.8 after a couple weeks and slowly take it back up over the course of a week. I'll occasionally add 1 Tbs of ph up if its moving too slowly upwards.

Seems to be working great so far in a warm water rdwc. Here's today's pics. I'm very happy with the thickness of the trunk and stems although the stretch did get away from me a bit in the beginning (new light and all, getting used to it and now i know i can keep it even closer)

View album 23052
 
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